Day 31: "Pandora's Box" - Aerosmith (1973-1979)

There was a time when I was big into Aerosmith.  "Permanent Vacation" had just come out, and my closest friend Jamie had got it on tape, and had done me a bootleg copy.  It was 1987, and I was 11 years old.  I remember that a few years later, I bought him "Pump" on cassette for his birthday, but to my eternal shame, made a copy of it for myself before giving it to him.  I bought "Eat The Rich" on CD when it came out in '93, and my copy is still in the pile (though many, many months off from this).

So I guess it's hard for me to say that I wasn't an Aerosmith fan;  I certainly was.  It's entirely reasonable that when Christmas rolled around that year, I found this Aerosmith Collected CD set under the Christmas tree from my parents.  But the sad reality was that by 1995, which I think is when I got this, I was 19, my tastes had changed, and Aerosmith, especially early Aerosmith represented everything to me that wasn't cool any more.

Suffer, as I suffered.

Now, I don't want to get too deep into my families borderline ridiculous approach to Christmas, because I have some Christmas CDs in my collection and god knows what I am going to talk about if I burn that topic here, but it's fair to say that if you've ever bought me a present that wasn't appropriate, or I didn't like, you would never know it;  I honed my craft of fake enthusiasm for things through years and years and practice;  by the time I had got to 19 I was already a past master.

And really, this isn't a particularly bad gift;  I mean, it makes sense based on my previous listening habits.  The problem was with me.  In my quest for some adolescent self-discovery (not that kind, you filthy perverts) I'd already dismissed this band as the kind of cliched middle of the road Dad-rock that it has the reputation for being.  And let's take a moment here to be fair to 1970's era Aerosmith, they can play a tune.  Steve Tyler may be the closest thing on earth to a real life Spitting Image puppet, but he's a charismatic frontman who can deliver energy and emotion in his vocals;  Joe Perry is one of the all time greats on guitar.  There's a reason they've had a career which has lasted almost as long as the Rolling Stones, and it's not just based on creating nauseating power ballads for Michael Bay movies.

But in 1995, Aerosmith represented everything that Grunge stood as a rejection of;  V-necked guitars, complicated solos, flamboyant performances and love songs had given way to vocal ennui and anger, shouted bursts of angst and guitarists who could only play four chords.  For 19 year old me, that resonated far better  than a trip through the 70's back catalogue of a stadium rock act, even a really competent one.

So, ironically, today is probably the first day I have listened to all these albums all the way through. And it was a struggle for me still;  even though my horizons are broader, my current brand of angst more "mid-life crisis" than "the existential horror of being young and directionless", the way I felt that Christmas morning when I opened this gift still hangs heavy over them.  I look at them now, and I still feel "I do not want this."

Making myself sit through 3 hours and 43 minutes of it this morning didn't to much to change my opinion, but in a way that has me slightly annoyed with myself.  I'd say "well, I wouldn't choose to listen to any stadium rock act when given then choice", but then I look at some of the albums that have had heavy rotation in my musical listening habits in the past and I know that's not true.  So I find myself asking whether that impulse from 22 years ago to cast this aside as not worthy of my time has forever blemished this set of recordings for me.  Or was my interest in Aerosmith just a passing phase?

So I guess this is me breaking up with Aerosmith.  Whatever existed before between us has passed away, and while I know you'll find thousands of people to love you, it's probably time for both of us to move on.  I'll keep your mementos to remind me of the happier times we had together, but I don't think things will ever quite be the same between us again.

I'm sorry Aerosmith, but at least I can say with complete sincerity - it's not you, it's me.